[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
CHINA TRADE.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[19881]
No. 1.
375
[June 17.]
SECTION 1.
23672
REC? PG 4 JUL 07
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.--(Received June 17.)
(No. 197.) Sir,
Peking, April 29, 1907. REFERRING to the letter of the Board of Trade inclosed in your despatch No. 366 of the 23rd October, 1906, I should state that my attention has been drawn to Article III of the Supplementary Treaty of the 17th November, 1880, between the United States and China, which would appear to entitle us to claim national treatment, and not favoured nation treatment only, from China in respect of coast trade duties. The first paragraph of the Article, which will be found on p. 417 of "Hertslet's China Treaties," reads as follows:---
"His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of China hereby promises and agrees that no other kind or higher rate of tonnage dues, or duties for exports or imports, or coastwise trade shall be imposed or leved in the open ports of China upon vessels wholly belonging to citizens of the United States; or upon the produce, manufactures, or merchandize imported in the same from the United States; or from any foreign country; or upon the produce, inanufactures, or merchandize exported in the same to the United States or any foreign country; or transported in the same from one open port of China to another, than are imposed or levied on vessels or cargoes of any
other nation or on those of Chinese subjects."
As the effect of this stipulation, which has been little noticed, would appear to extend further than the present practice, I applied to my American colleague for information regarding it. He knew nothing of it beyond the correspondence published
in the series of official "Papers relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States," and it would seem that no attempt has been made to use it in argument with the Chinese Government against the privileges accorded to the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company, or against the lower duties which are no doubt levied on domestic trade in native junks.
The genesis of the Article is explained in a despatch of the 17th November, 1880, from the United States' Commissioners, the negotiators, to Mr. Evarts, which is published in the 1881 volume of the United States' "Foreign Relations Papers" at pp. 198 and 199. It was a proposition of the Chinese Government, who wished "to put the rights of the commerce of the two countries as to tonnage dues and imports in the condition of reciprocity"; but it is evident from an examination of the whole of Article III that while the United States conceded national treatment in respect of imports only, they obtained from China national treatment for imports, exports, and "coastwise trade." From that despatch and from two others addressed by the then United States' Minister, Mr. Angell, to Mr. Evarts on the 16th and 30th November, 1880 (pp. 190-195 and 211-213 of the volume above mentioned), it is clear that the American negotiators were aware of the privileges enjoyed by the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company, and that these were a discrimination against foreign shipping in respect of coast-trade duties, yet no step has ever been taken since the conclusion of the Supplementary Treaty of 1880 to enforce Article III in this matter. A despatch, printed at p. 99 of the 1892 volume of the same series of papers, from Mr. Denby to Mr. Blaine shows that differential duties imposed at Canton in favour of junk-borne trade were considered by the United States' Minister to be a contraven- tion of the Article, but the point does not seem to have been raised with the Chinese Government, and from the fact that special stipulations against preferential treatment of junk-borne trade were introduced into the British Commercial Treaty of 1902 (vide Article III and the still inoperative Article VIII) it would seem that our negotiators were not satisfied with the protection afforded by the American Treaty.
In the circumstances I do not think it would be politic to take advantage of
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